Crazy Orange-Eating Cows

We have navel oranges, grapefruit, and tangerines, but they aren't quite ripe yet.  Before the end of the year, we'll be picking them, though.  Our neighbors have satsuma trees and they are absolutely loaded this year.  They told us we can pick all we want.  Every couple of days we'll venture over and pick 2 Wal Mart bags full of delicious citrus and we'll pour them in bowls on the kitchen island and snack on them throughout the day.  Note to self: We need to go pick some more tomorrow.

That is the nice thing about living in the gulf south.  The weather is almost tropical and you can grow citrus with ease.  Almost every household has some sort of citrus tree and literally tons of fruit go to waste each year as people simply can't eat all the fruit they grow.  I hate to see food go to waste.  Thankfully, our neighbors are very generous and we ensure that not much of the fruit off their trees is wasted.

Believe it or not, we discovered that cows LOVE citrus.  We'll pick the fruit off the ground that is a little overripe and load it into bags and the cows (and goats, and chickens) come running...  They line up and we feed them satsumas. 

They'll eat them whole - peelings and all, obviously, as cows don't have thumbs to peel them.  We also throw some to the chickens and they tear them up, too.

When the bag is empty, they'll beg for more.  They absolutely love them.  I was thinking that maybe after eating so much citrus, their milk would taste like an Orange Julius or Orange Sherbet, but nope, just rich creamy milk!